


An Account of the 1944 Season of the 506th PIR Basketball Team by Lewis Nixon, Unofficial Manager

by jouissant



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Basketball, M/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2019-04-22 23:30:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14319453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jouissant/pseuds/jouissant
Summary: There wasn't a precise moment when Lew became the de facto manager of the 506th basketball team—it was more of a process of attrition.





	An Account of the 1944 Season of the 506th PIR Basketball Team by Lewis Nixon, Unofficial Manager

**Author's Note:**

  * For [semperama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/semperama/gifts), [dancinguniverse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinguniverse/gifts), [kunstvogel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kunstvogel/gifts).



> What happens when you watch "Day of Days" and realize, via the whole Hall arc, that a) there was a 506th basketball team, b) Dick coached the basketball team, and c) Nix was at least involved enough to know who was on the basketball team, despite a general alleged distaste for sports. I wonder what the draw could possibly have been!

In the mess tent at Aldbourne, Dick was frowning. This was the first inkling Lew had that something was wrong. Had Dick been anyone else, the expression wouldn't have caused Lew nearly so much concern. After all, there were plenty of things to frown about here in England. The weather, for one; the spring had been nothing but fog and rain and general dreariness. The chow, for another, but that was nothing new. And the war, which was apparently proceeding apace without their help. Nice to know, Lew thought, that they'd survived two years of Herbert Sobel just to cool their heels in Wiltshire, prowling about the countryside and jumping over the downs. But Dick wasn't given to complaining about these sorts of things; he merely got on with it, and reserved most of his ire for things that mattered. 

So when he frowned, Lew noticed, and was accordingly disturbed. 

"Hey," he said, but Dick wasn't paying attention. He was reading a letter, the same letter he'd been carrying about for days and pulling out to read at intervals. Lew guessed if something truly awful was contained within its lines, Dick would have confessed it by now. No, he thought, whatever had Dick at sixes and sevens must be something subtle, a creeping discomfort Lew liked even less than catastrophe. Such things inevitably proved harder to deal with. 

"Hey," Lew said again, and once more. Then, "HQ to Lieutenant Winters, do you read?" This at last earned him a response; Dick's head snapped up and he fixed Lew with a glare. 

"What is it?" 

"Oh, nothing," said Lew airily. "Just wanted to get your attention. I was beginning to feel neglected." 

Dick rolled his eyes. He folded the letter and tucked it away in his jacket, and held up his hands in surrender. "Well, you've got it now," he said. "Happy?" 

"Depends," said Lew. "Will you come up to London with me this weekend? And don't say you haven't got a pass, because I know you do." 

"Been through the regimental secretary's desk again, have you?" 

Lew tapped the side of his nose. "I'll never reveal my methods. But c'mon, Dick. Say yes. We'll go and find some decent food somewhere on this godforsaken island. Or barring that, we'll find a nice pub." 

Dick picked up his teaspoon and set it into his cup of coffee. Tepid, probably, judging by how long he'd been neglecting it. Lew decided he'd get up in a minute and get them both another cup. 

"And what'll I do in a pub?" Dick asked. 

"Keep me company. I hear I'm very good company." 

"Sounds like a thrill a minute.” 

Lew clapped a hand over his heart. "You wound me." Dick was smiling now, which was something.

Dick kicked him under the table. "Thanks for the invitation, but I'm tied up here. I've got to run inventory for the basketball team. " 

"We've got a basketball team?" 

Dick shrugged. "We do now. Basketball, football. Command means to keep morale up, I think. Give the men something to do besides drill and drink and worry about when our orders are coming down." 

"Logical of them," said Lew drily. 

Dick had drifted off again, looking over Lew's shoulder across the mess. "Yeah, I guess it is. Anyway, first game's in two weeks against the Air Corps. We've got to make a showing and I haven't even got a squad sorted out." 

"So you're coaching, obviously," Lew went on, noting the curious flare of pride the knowledge sent up in his chest. That was so like Dick, he thought. To take the most trifling extracurricular and handle it with the same professionalism afforded the American Basketball League, to say nothing of E Company. 

Dick nodded. "Buck Compton's going to help me," he said. "You know him. New fellow, just made it over?" 

"What, that lunkhead you chewed out for playing craps with the men? You're kidding."

"That was once, and it was a mistake," said Dick. "And he's plenty sharp, Nix." 

"Maybe if you're a cheerleader," said Lew uncharitably. Dick gave him a look that said _you're terrible_. Lew took out his ubiquitous flask and splashed a little whiskey into his coffee, having no grounds on which to argue the point. 

"London's no fun alone," he said, taking a sip from his mug. 

"Why don't you take what's-her-name?" 

Lew thought Dick probably knew her name perfectly well. 

"Margaret? Oh. We had a falling out." Apparently there were two schools of thought regarding disclosing one's marital status to a lover. He and Margaret had found themselves at an intellectual impasse. Not that he'd bother boring Dick with the gory details.

"Oh," said Dick. "Well. I'm sorry." 

"She'll come around." Lew shrugged. "Or she won't, no skin off my nose." 

"Sure," said Dick. 

"Guess I'll stick around here then," said Lew casually. "Say, lemme know if I can help with your inventory. I'm a dab hand with a clipboard." 

***

Dick's inventory was less than entirely successful, turning up half a dozen partially deflated basketballs and a "court" located in an abandoned hangar. At least there were nets involved; Lew might've expected actual baskets given the state of affairs. 

"We can blow these up," said Dick, attempting to dribble one of the balls with limited success. 

"Sure," said Lew. "It'll be just like new. Have you got any recruits?" 

"I pinned a signup sheet on the bulletin board in the mess," Dick said. "I haven't been by to look at it. But the first practice is set for tomorrow afternoon, so I suppose we'll find out then." 

"Well, if you need bodies," Lew said, gesturing weakly at himself. 

Dick snorted. "You don't have to sign up, Lew. I know how you feel about sports." 

"Please," said Lew. "I love sports. I went to homecoming at Yale two years in a row." 

"Oh? You happen to recall who won?" 

"Dick, I'm surprised at you. It's not about victory or defeat. It's all about good wholesome sportsmanship and love of the game. Anyway, I sat on the roof of a car at the tailgate and got completely hammered both times. It was great. Rah rah, go Bulldogs." 

As it turned out, Lew didn't have to throw himself on the pike after all. Dick's first practice yielded a healthy crop of would-be players from every company of the 506th. Dick had resurrected his basketballs, and Lew had managed to scare up a couple of similarly-sized medicine balls from a sporting-goods shop with the help of some judiciously placed cash and ration cards. He supposed he could have ended his involvement with the whole enterprise there and felt perfectly good about himself, but there was something invigorating about the atmosphere in the makeshift court that made Lew stick around and take up a seat on a stray folding chair when he had any number of other places to be.

Outside it was raining per usual, and Lew had gotten an earful from Strayer this morning about some minor error in a report that had had nothing at all to do with whiskey, despite Strayer's insinuations to the contrary. The chow was still bad, and Margaret still wasn't speaking to him other than to tell him in no uncertain terms to go to hell. But here inside the hangar the air was humid, the lights bright. Dick was wearing his PT gear and had a whistle around his neck, and though Lew was no stranger to watching Dick put the company through its paces the image before him now filled him with a singular delight. Even Buck Compton, who stood beside Dick with a matching whistle and all the gravitas of a muscle-bound eclair, couldn't dampen Lew's spirits. 

"We'll start with some running drills," Dick said, to a chorus of groans. "Oh, come on now." He inspected his watch. "Ten minute jog up the road and back, fall out." 

He and Buck trotted off after them. Dick came past Lew, doubled back and smacked him on the shoulder. "You coming?" he asked. 

"Aw, too bad," Lew called after him. "I'm not dressed for it." 

He had brought along his clipboard, though, and while he was waiting for them to finish the warmup he took Dick's signup sheet and copied out a roster in a neater hand. When the nascent team came back into the hangar, steaming and blowing like horses, Dick set them immediately to sprinting the length of the court. 

"Suicides," said Buck, for Lew's benefit. 

"No kidding," said Lew. "Give me an asp or a poisoned chalice any day of the week." 

Again he considered getting up to leave, as the practice had veered towards a realm in which Lew had little experience and even less interest. But when they were finished with the warmup, when Dick eyed the clipboard and asked if Lew could make a note of who he was trying in each position, Lew took up his stub of pencil and complied. Dick pulled up a chair between Lew and Buck and leaned forward intently, elbows on his knees.

"I like that Hall kid for point guard," he said. "How about you two?" Lew didn't know a point guard from a forward, but he nodded along with Buck, and Dick didn't even bother to call him on it. 

"You mind holding onto that for next time?" Dick asked at the end of the session, nodding at Lew's scribbled dictation. Lew didn't, not really. At the other end of the court the men were sprawled on the ground, laughing easily. Dick didn't look like he was thinking about the letter. 

"Sure," Lew said. So in the end, there wasn't a precise moment when Lew became the de facto manager of the 506th basketball team—it was more of a process of attrition. 

***

"I thought you hated sports," said Harry into his beer. 

They were at the Coach and Horses. Margaret was at the bar with some drip from Battalion, and Lew was drinking his way out of—or into— an accordingly foul mood. Across the table Dick had his letter out again, squinting at it in the low light. Lew thought it looked a little worse for wear, battered and moth-eaten at the corners, threatening to split along its fold lines. 

"I don't hate sports," Lew said. 

"He's making an exception for basketball," said Dick without looking up. "For the sake of morale." 

"Sounds like he's making an exception for you," said Harry. Dick did look up at that, and Lew thought his face probably shouldn't be as hot as it felt. He took an overlarge gulp of whiskey. 

"What?" said Harry, looking between them. "It's nice of you, is all. Dick oughta be appreciative. Nevermind we used to meet for beer and cards Wednesday nights—" 

"You didn't say you had a standing appointment," said Dick. 

"I don't, goddammit," said Lew, feeling flustered. "You've got plenty of drinking buddies, Harry. And tell Ron if he doesn't go easy on you in poker he'll have me to answer to." 

"Aw, but you're my very favorite drinking buddy, Lewis." 

Harry slid a hand onto Lew's arm and batted his eyelashes. Lew removed his hand and shot him the bird. "You're breaking my heart, Welsh. Now lay off, or I'll write Kitty myself and tell her what a terrible tease she's marrying." 

"You wouldn't dare," said Harry, lighting a cigarette. "Dick, this conversation is taking a turn for the improper. Shed a little of your heavenly glow on us sinners, what do you say?" 

"I say if I was glowing I wouldn't be going cross-eyed trying to read this damned letter," Dick said, getting up from the table. He sighed. "I'm going to leave you boys to it." 

"C'mon, don't go," said Lew, feeling less peculiar about his insistence with Harry crowing assent beside him. 

Dick gave a half-smile, as though heartened they wanted him to stick around. "I'm beat," he said. "Don't get into trouble, huh?" 

"'Course not," Harry said. 

"Harry." 

"I'll keep an eye on him," Lew said. 

"Oh, great," said Harry, brandishing his pint glass. "Blind leading the blind over here. Keep that eye on my drink, will you, Nix? It's getting a little low." 

Lew was watching Dick's retreating back. "He's been staring at that thing all week," he muttered, but Harry wasn't paying attention. 

They stayed in the pub until closing, when they were tipped out onto the street, the streetlights dim in the blackout. Harry wove a shaky path along the cobblestones, and Lew was forced to take him by the elbow, at least until Harry caught on and reclaimed his arm. 

"Look how the tables've turned, huh, Nix?" he asked, voice loud in the too-quiet street. 

"How do you figure?" 

"You're the one with your head on straight for a change." 

Lew laughed, and slung his arm around Harry's shoulders. "I think it's a matter of degrees, my friend." 

In truth, Lew had always been something of a quiet drunk, the type not to let on until he was far into his cups. He poured whiskey down his throat as into a pit, his insides dark and—he fancied—fathomless. Harry was incendiary, a sparkplug. A little violent, a little colorful. It wasn't that one of them was a straighter arrow than the other, especially compared to Dick, but under the influence they tended to veer in different directions. 

He walked Harry back to his billet, the sweet little house he shared with Dick, site of several afternoon teas as gluttonous as rationing allowed courtesy of one Mrs. Barnes. Lew privately suspected the woman might be magic, or at least possessed of a magically well-stocked larder. Dick and Harry were both happy here, their rooms spartan but comfortable, but Lew found himself especially glad for Dick. Which was strange when he stopped to consider it—Dick was a man, after all, not some homesick schoolboy—but he seemed to slot between Mr. and Mrs. Barnes in a way that implied a need unexpectedly but gratefully met.

"Say," said Lew as they came alongside the house. "Isn't that Dick's window?" There was a light burning on the second floor, visible from the street beneath the blackout curtains. 

"Sure is. Tired, my ass. You think he's got a girl up there?" 

Lew snorted. "Now I know you're drunk. I think I'll go up and check on him," he said. "Make sure he didn't leave a lit candle. Wouldn't do to burn your billet down, would it?" 

"Probably not," said Harry. If he recognized Lew's paper-thin pretense for what it was, he didn't say anything.

Lew bid him goodnight at the foot of the stairs and went up, stepping gently as he could on the narrow, well-worn steps. The house was nigh-ancient, and if he was quiet he imagined he could hear the ghostly denizens of centuries chittering in its walls. He liked this place better than he did his drafty corner of the manse the regiment had taken as its HQ. He decided he might even be a little jealous of Harry. 

He knocked softly on Dick's door. "Come in," he heard from inside. Dick couldn't have been sure he wasn't a runner here on business, and indeed when Lew went in he found Dick sitting ramrod-straight on the edge of his bed, wearing his long johns and trying his best to look official. He had his letter out again.

"At ease, trooper," Lew said lightly. 

Dick grinned. "Closed the joint down, did you?" 

Lew shrugged. "Well, you wanted an eye on Harry. I live to serve."

"I thought you might have tried to make a play," Dick said. "For your girl, I mean." 

"Oh," said Lew. "No, I know when I'm licked." 

He sat beside Dick on the bed, close enough that their knees were touching. Dick relaxed and sat cross-legged, letting his spine sink into an uncharacteristic slump. 

"Look at us. Two soldiers in repose," said Lew, patting Dick on the thigh. "What are you still doing up, anyway? You said you were beat. You'll get an earful from Harry tomorrow for blowing him off." 

Dick laughed softly. He shrugged. "I guess I'm brooding," he said. 

"Careful, that's my territory." Lew pressed his lips together, considering. "Let me guess, it's got something to do with this." He reached past Dick and plucked at the corner of the letter. 

"Nix—" 

"I'm not reading it," said Lew, letting it drift back to the bed. "But I've gotta say, I'm curious. You've been carrying it around with you for days like it's some cipher you're trying to crack." 

"It's no cipher," Dick said, sounding abashed. "And I don't really care if you read it. It's from my father. It's not the reading that's the trouble, anyway, it's the reply. " 

"What's he say?" 

Dick took a long breath. He seemed…maybe not sad, exactly, but troubled. Certainly thoughtful, and Lew might have given him shit for it on a different day. But not tonight, not so late when he looked a little peaked, a little younger than Lew was accustomed to. 

"You know I've been sending my pay home," Dick said.

Lew nodded. He set aside a portion of his own to send to Kathy and the kid, though that was more symbolic than anything. Not like Dick, who sent back every penny, and had right from the beginning, barely keeping enough for himself to buy a pack of gum, let alone the endless rounds of drinks that seemed to eat up the majority of Lew's own salary.

"Sure," Lew said. 

"He wrote to tell me they paid off their mortgage." 

"That's great," Lew said. "Isn't it?" Lew lived in a townhouse his father had paid cash for, but he wasn't a total heel. 

"Yeah," said Dick. 

"You must feel good, helping them out." 

Dick continued on as if Lew hadn't spoken. "He said if I liked he'd look for a farm to buy, for me to live in when I came back. I've been talking about it since I joined up. I thought I'd put my time in, go back to Lancaster. Simple as that.” 

“Okay.” 

“Only I can't—" Dick shook his head, blinked hard like he had an eyeful of grit. "I can't see it." 

"What d'you mean?" 

"I used to see it," Dick said. "Me in that farmhouse after the war, clear as a bell. I can't see it anymore." 

Lew swallowed. "What do you see instead?" 

"I don't know. Not that." Dick sighed and ran a hand over his face. "This is stupid. We haven't even been to war yet, it's a little early for a crack-up." 

"You're not cracking up.” 

"For planning, then." He gave Lew a sidelong look. "Just seems like counting your chickens."

Lew patted Dick on the leg again by way of answer, and this time let his hand sit there. The fabric of Dick's long johns was thinner than his ODs, Lew thought idly. Cotton waffle. He ought to move, but Dick wasn't complaining. 

"What about you?" Dick said. "What'll you do?" 

Lew gave a dry chuckle. The question should have been easy enough to answer, but of course it wasn’t. Lew’s curious stew of recent emotions, of which Kathy and their child made up such a pitifully small portion, was proof enough of that. “I’m taking it one day at a time," he said. "With a weather-eye on the longterm, of course." 

"Oh yeah?" 

"Yeah. I like Paris in the summer. How about you?" 

"Never been," said Dick. 

"Well, it's a hell of a town. I used to live there, you know." 

"You've said. Several times. As a matter of fact sometimes I think you forget you're not trying to impress me." 

"Who says I'm not?" 

It was a logical rejoinder to Dick's rib, but just as his melancholy over the letter had gained a certain nocturnal heft, so now had Lew's throwaway line, dropping like a stone between them. Lew's palm on Dick's thigh was warm, and without thinking about it he'd begun to rub his thumb back and forth against the fabric, which he realized with a slow-onset horror. He coughed and removed the hand, setting it in his lap, unable to resist the ridiculous urge to steal a glance to be sure he hadn't left a print, some damning trace to prove he'd been there. Dick was looking down too, as though he might have had the same thought. 

"It's late," said Lew, wiping his hand on his own pants-leg. "I guess I ought to be getting back." 

"That's a hike," said Dick. "You want to stay? I can take the floor." 

Lew scrambled from the bed at speed. "I couldn't," he said. "Who knows what tomorrow’s got up its sleeve for you. If you weren't in fighting trim, I'd never forgive myself." 

Dick rolled his eyes. "I guess you're right."

“Germans might invade. I hear there's a war on." 

Dick opened his mouth to reply, loosing a yawn instead. Lew tried to remember the last time he'd seen Dick yawn. He found he couldn't, and was thus all the more pleased to have witnessed it, as though Dick was some rare creature he'd been tasked with observing. 

"Well," Dick said. "Watch your step on the way then, will you?" 

"Yessir," said Lew, saluting messily. He shoved his hands in his pockets and shifted foot to foot. For all his readiness to leave, the room was cozy, and Dick heavy-lidded on the bed seemed equally so. All the more reason to go, Lew told himself. Already he felt as though he was seeing someone home, standing on their doorstep and waiting as they fumbled for their key. 

"'Night, Dick," he said, voice softer than intended. 

"Goodnight," Dick said.

Lew stole back downstairs and out onto the street. He felt alight despite the hour, pleasantly frustrated as though scratching just alongside an itch. His foot caught a pebble and he knelt and picked it up, tossed it from one hand to another until he grew tired of it and chucked it into the hedgerow.

***

"These Air Corps guys look serious, Coach," said Hall alongside the court. 

"Looks aren't everything, Private," Dick said, eyes on his roster. On the other side of the hangar the Air Corps basketball team was warming up, complete with custom uniforms and crisp new Chuck Taylors. Looks weren't everything, but at the moment they looked to Lew to be about ninety-nine percent. 

"All due respect, sir," said Hall, "But we're in our long johns and jump boots."

"Well, think about how it's going to feel to cream the Air Corps in your underwear,” Dick replied, sounding put upon. "Now go and round them up, will you? Five minutes out and back, then the usual drills and stretches." 

"Yes, sir," said Hall. He turned on his heel and jogged over to the men clustered around the bench, trying to pretend they weren't staring down their opponents. He waved his hands around excitedly, and the basketball team fell out into a loose line and filed out of the hangar door, Buck bringing up the rear.

"Not going?" Lew asked. 

Dick shook his head. "Buck's got them," he said. 

"What's eating you?" 

"Nothing," Dick said. "Only the fact that the brass have our paychecks riding on this game." He looked around at the bleachers that had been hauled in for the occasion, which were already becoming a sort of auxiliary officer's mess. 

"You're kidding," Lew said. 

"Wish I was. I guess it makes things interesting, huh? Makes me look like a heck of an idiot, too." 

"How do you figure?" 

"What I said to Buck awhile back. I'm surprised you haven't brought it up. Why bother telling a lowly first lieutenant not to take from the men when the higher ups'll do the same thing and call it a night's entertainment? They even made up programs." 

"You're not an idiot," Lew said reflexively. "And you were right about Compton." 

"Yeah?" 

"Yeah." He lowered his voice. "You're right now, too. It's a lousy thing to do in the name of morale. You're better than that, and you know it. Hell, they probably know it. It's like you told Hall—they might have the stripes, but you can lead circles around 'em in your long johns and jump boots." 

The words came out all in a rush, leaving Lew feeling stammery and red-faced. He'd leaned in close to deliver his diatribe in an undertone, and now he found himself brought up short by Dick's earlobe, of all things. In the silence that followed Lew occupied himself by counting no fewer than five freckles on a single square inch of skin before Dick bit his lip and looked away, looking uncomfortable. Well, there you go, Lew thought to himself. Had to go and open your fat mouth. He shouldn't have been surprised; Dick never could take a compliment. Now his ears were a freckle-obscuring scarlet, and he was saying something about going to talk to the referee, an MP they'd enlisted specially for purposes of neutrality. 

"Sure, go on," Lew said. And because he couldn't leave well enough alone, he called after him: "I meant that, you know."

Dick put his hand up in either acknowledgement or dismissal. Lew couldn't tell which, and Dick didn't look back to offer any insight. Before tip-off he gathered the team around for a pep talk that would probably have moved Lew to tears if he'd heard it. Instead, he sat on the bench and scribbled on his clipboard, hoping he looked as though he was composing a last minute strategy instead of the meaningless loops and whorls of a preoccupied brain. 

The game was a drag-out. In the first ten minutes Liebgott took an elbow to the teeth from a gangly Air Corps defender and went down clutching his mouth, blood squirming from between his fingers. Things only got less civilized from there, as though the team had taken Dick's scrappy call to action as gospel.

At halftime they were 12-14 in favor of the visitors, and Lew was experiencing an unanticipated degree of emotional investment. "What?" he snapped at Harry, who appeared at his elbow bearing two sloshing paper cups and shocking him out of his state of eagle's-eye focus. 

"What's your problem?" Harry asked. 

"Oh, I don't know," Lew said, feeling irritated. "Maybe the fact we're behind?" 

Harry shrugged. "It's early days yet," he said, holding up a cup. "You want? They've got a couple kegs in back. Really pulled out the stops on this, beer and everything."

"No thanks," Lew said. 

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Taking your coaching duties seriously?" 

"I'm not a coach." 

"Okay," Harry said. 

Lew glared at him. "Give me that," he said, and took the cup. 

The beer was warm, and Lew made a face. Goddamn Brits, he thought. I'll jump into hell itself if it gets me out of Aldbourne. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Dick moving along the sideline, and for the first time in a long time he felt embarrassed for drinking. He took another long slug and shoved the remainder at Harry.

“That’s swill,” he said. “Better get back to your seat, huh? Third quarter’s about to tip off.” But he was looking at Dick when he said it. Stupid. He hated the way getting the least bit crosswise with Dick could throw him further off course than any broad ever could, and wasn’t that the goddamn elephant in the room, and hadn’t it been for—oh, a year at least? He could laugh, it was so painfully obvious. He’d always thought of himself as a highly discriminating individual, but leave it to Lew’s heart to buck the trend, to be so startlingly egalitarian.

Harry frowned. He took the cup back, but he gave Lew a long and appraising look as he did it. He seemed, as Harry often did, dangerously close to figuring something out. One of these days Lew was pretty sure he’d just come out with it, and then where would Lew be. At a loss for words, probably, for once in his worthless life. 

“Are you sure you’re all right, Nix?” 

“Oh, fine. Great. Just, let’s get this dog-and-pony show over with and get me a real fucking drink.” 

Harry retreated, shaking his head, and Lew felt his heart rate begin to back off the metal. All right, so that last bit might have been overkill, but it had been worth it to get that knowing look back onto Harry’s face. Let him think Lew had a bug up his ass over something predictable: the beer, or Margaret, or his actual wife. Anything but the truth, which was that he’d just paid Dick what had to be the most genuine compliment he’d ever dredged up, practically rolled over and shown him his pale, far-too-tender underbelly, and as a result Dick had looked at him like they were on a pristine carpet and Lewis had tracked something in on his shoe.

He stared furiously at the court. Bull Randleman was looking for a pass, and Hall dodged around an Air Corps defender and got himself open, the motion so fluid and balletic that it satisfied something deep inside Lew to see it. 

“HALL,” Lew screamed at Randleman. “LOOK AT HALL.” 

He hadn’t quite realized he was going to shout until he did, and the sound of it almost frightened him. It seemed as if it was louder than any other noise in the whole vast space around him, that everyone would look now, not just to identify him as the man who had screamed but to see straight through him, how he hadn’t written Kathy in six months, how he shook the whole time he was writing that report for Strayer, shook until he went rummaging in Dick’s locker again, oh, just one, Nix, and how the last time they fucked Margaret had run her hand over his belly unthinkingly while he’d been bloated with drink and in an instant Lew had seen the next fifty years, that front-heavy boozy stagger he already caught reflected in glass when he was awash and powerless to stop it. And that was just the kid stuff. Never mind the invasion, which seemed always to loom maddeningly in the middle distance; never mind Dick, who only wanted to feel at home someplace again, and could you even imagine wanting something as beautiful as that, something so pure and simple that a man like Lew might actually be physically incapable of providing it, assuming he lived in a universe benevolent enough that Dick would want him to? 

But nobody looked at him. His voice, ragged as it was, was only one in a whole cacophony. Not even Randleman looked at him, though it seemed as though he’d heard Lew yell, or maybe Lew had shoved the thought into his head directly by sheer force of will. Almost automatically Randleman turned his body, pivoted and launched the ball in a wide arc through space, and Hall caught it as seamlessly as if the ball had been guided down into his hands. He dribbled once, twice, and Lew thought that really “dribble” was a pretty awful word as action verbs went, that surely one could think up a more attractive name for the rubbery kiss of the ball on the hangar floor. Hall was up on his toes now and the ball flew free again and again it arced through the air, this time arriving home to the perfect circle of the basket seemingly without so much as a brush of the hoop or net. Lew screamed again in rabid jubilation, and this time he knew the crowd screamed with him. 

*** 

The 506th won the game, of course, trounced the Air Corps in their long johns and jump boots just like Coach Winters said they would. Years later, at one of the reunions he made it to, Lew would tell people that he’d always known they’d win. Even better, that that night he knew they’d win all of it, the whole thing, as if the infectious braggadocio that had earned Liebgott that fat lip had been a stand-in for their approach to the whole European theatre. Hell, the whole goddamn war.

This was a lie, of course, for all it made a lovely story. Lew hadn’t known anything that night; in fact, he’d known so little that after all of it, when he and Dick found themselves alone again in Dick’s room at the Barneses’, Lew couldn’t think of anything to do but apologize.

“For what?” Dick asked. He was changing out of his PT gear, and Lew was trying to look like he didn’t care. 

“Oh, what I said earlier. I just thought it might have been, you know, a bit much.” 

Dick sat back on his hands on the floor, where he’d been pawing through his footlocker for a freshly folded undershirt, which he of course possessed in abundance. He had draped the shirt atop one knee as though consideration of the matter required his immediate attention, and Lew felt a throb of affection that someone should afford him this kind of focus. He himself was perilously bad at it; case in point, his entire military career, which he could now admit to himself was one long engineered distraction from his regularly scheduled life, albeit one thoughtfully arranged by Adolf Hitler on his behalf. That he could manage something here that passed for expertise never ceased to amaze him; that Dick could was a given. 

“Well,” said Dick, “Maybe it seemed like it at first—” 

Lew cringed. 

“—but then I started thinking about it.” 

“Oh yeah?” 

“All night, actually.” 

“You’re kidding,” Lew said in a breezy effort to mask his relief, which was as palpable and exquisite as emptying a full bladder. 

“Yeah, while you were out there carousing to beat the band alongside the boys. I saw you yelling on the sidelines, by the way.” 

“I was not yelling.” 

“Got right up out of your chair and everything. And again when we won.” 

“Well,” said Lew. “If they hadn’t been so damn showy maybe it wouldn’t have felt so good to beat the snot out of ‘em.” 

“Spoken like a true sportsman,” said Dick wryly. “But no, I did think about it. I’m going to write my dad tomorrow, tell him to wait on the farmhouse.” 

“You still can’t see it?” 

Dick shrugged. “I don’t know. There’s a part of it that still has its appeal. And I still can’t see…what I might want instead.” He looked up then. He was still shirtless, the fish-pale skin of his belly unspackled by freckles, disappearing into the waistband of his shorts. He was lean; despite Lew’s ghost of his future habitus he was too, but Dick especially so, all ropy muscle, and Lew could see the vein beat at his neck as Dick looked at him, and Lew wondered if he imagined that it was beating faster to think of wanting. 

“But I might be doing some good here,” Dick went on. “Focus on that, maybe. See how it shakes out.” He sounded as though he was trying to convince himself. He fiddled with the hem of the t-shirt. “And you’re so keen on Europe, after all. Maybe when things are said and done we’ll take the long way back, huh?” He looked up again, through his eyelashes. 

Oh, god damn you, Lew thought. You know exactly what you’re doing. But it was Dick, the most guileless human Lew had ever met, and so of course he didn’t. “I don’t know,” Lew said. “We’re going to have to work on your language skills, or else how are you going to _enchanter les filles?_ ” 

“I don’t know about that,” said Dick. “But I suppose I’ve got a decent tutor.” 

“Halfway decent,” Lew said. “Wouldn’t want to get your hopes up too far.” 

Dick chuckled at that, which morphed into a yawn. Lew was again childishly delighted. Dick unguarded was a treat, he thought, and woe betide the girl who found herself permanently on the receiving end one day, when at last Dick figured out what he wanted. Lew would dream her up in advance, because possibly that would make the whole thing easier somehow, the eventual uncoupling he already half dreaded. But it wouldn’t come tonight; that at least Lew could be sure of. Tonight Dick was in his skivvies, yawning, and Lew’s outburst seemed to have had the intended effect. 

“It’s late,” Dick said, around the end of the yawn. “You sure you don’t want to rack here?” 

“Oh, well,” said Lew. “If you’re insisting. But don’t try and take the floor. I’m on to you. Your money’s no good here, etcetera.” 

Dick shook his head, as though Lew was being very stupid but Dick knew he couldn’t help it. “There’s a quilt in the trunk there. But I haven’t got another pillow, so you’ll have to make do.” 

“Gimme that shirt,” Lew said, feeling bold. 

“What, this?” 

“You heard,” Lew said. 

Dick hesitated a moment before tossing it over. “I’d share the bed,” he said. “But—”

“Christ, that sardine can is all yours. I’m just fine down here, if you’ll find me that quilt.” He did, and Lew settled on the rug beside Dick’s bed, propped himself up on an elbow and watched Dick select another undershirt. The one Lew had borrowed was freshly washed, and would smell like the starch of the launderette, like all that hot water, like clean baby-powder skin. It would not, more’s the pity, smell like Dick, although Lew had to admit that under the circumstances that might be for the best. He folded the shirt again, and tucked it between his head and his folded forearm. He was curled up next to the bed like a dog, he thought, and the thing was, he didn’t quite mind it. Dick sat and watched him a minute, gaze warm. Then he tugged the shirt on and stepped neatly over Lew into the bed only to dig into Lew’s flank with a stocking foot, just in case Lew was getting too comfortable. “Oops,” he said. “Sorry, Nix.” 

Nix darted a hand out and caught him around the ankle. He held him for a moment, a peculiar kind of closeness, stranger even than a hand on Dick’s knee for all it seemed to say, how else might I touch you? There was a pulse here too, in the shallow furrow beside Dick’s anklebone, and Lew let it thrill against the pads of his fingers, and then he dropped Dick’s foot, and then they both went to sleep.


End file.
